California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom: NRA Does Not Deserve Respect

During a June 9 appearance on Chelsea Handler’s Chelsea, California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom said the NRA does not deserve any respect for pushing back against his new gun controls.

Newsom is pushing for ammunition background checks that will require all law-abiding ammunition purchasers to pass the same checks as people buying guns, and he also wants to ban the possession of “high capacity” magazines throughout the state.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Newsom was referring to complaints that his controls will make it even harder for transgenders to get the guns they need to defend themselves. He suggested the transgender complaints were somehow the work of the NRA. Then he and Handler shared an exchange about the topic:

“They kind of disagree with me on everything I say,” Newsom said of the NRA.

He continued, “With all due respect to them.”

“With no respect to them. No. There is no respect,” Handler said.

“Good point. They offer none; they deserve none,” Newsom replied.

Newsom followed the exchange by claiming the United States had “330 mass shooting [in 2015] and 126 this year.”

In December 2015, Mother Jones editor Mark Follman warned against exaggerating the numbers of mass shootings and explained that his concern springs from the fact that a figure like 330 is actually about 326 mass shootings too high. Follman showed there were actually four mass shootings in 2015.

Suffice it to say nothing close to 126 mass shootings occurred this year.

In fact, Mother Jones reported a study showing there have been a total of “90 public mass shootings” in the U.S. in the last 46 years. That works out to an average of 1.95 a year. Meanwhile, the CDC said children who die accidental deaths are seven times more likely to die by fire-related deaths than gun-related, and they are sixteen times more likely to die by drowning than by guns.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.